Wow, what an article! It seems like Schaeffer is going to spend his whole life spewing rage at whichever groups he has left while blaming his parents for this, that, and the other thing for good measure.

I don't think anyone can take his comments as apophaticism. I have read apophatic theology and they are always reverent when they speak of God and Scripture. This is very sacrilegious and disrespectful. I think it's the other "a" word: apostasy.

I don't think anyone can take his comments as apophaticism. I have read apophatic theology and they are always reverent when they speak of God and Scripture. This is very sacrilegious and disrespectful. I think it's the other "a" word: apostasy.

So perhaps it's no coincidence that atheism emerged in the context of the Western Christian expression of both Roman Catholic and Protestant "intellectual" and "rational" religions that carried on doctrinal disputes over their "facts" to such a degree that those theological issues became the root cause of endless wars, persecutions and killings. Beside the idea of correct doctrine leading to actual war Western Christianity paid another price in that it built a house of cards wherein if you remove one card the entire edifice collapses. Since religion was reduced to belief in the right ideas religion became more about the "recipes" in the "cookbook" than about cooking itself.....Most things we do have a human community reason for doing them rather than an ideological or theological "reason." I go to church because of my grandchildren. I enjoy taking them to the liturgy. But I'm fortunate because the liturgy I take them to the Greek Orthodox service that revolves around doing of liturgical practice rather than talking about belief systems. What you believe isn't the point. Showing up is. We light candles, take communion, make the sign of the cross, and kiss icons. The comfort I derive from these inane rituals is much the same as the comfort I get from gardening.....A "fact based" religious life -- in other words the idea that theology is a road to knowing the "right way" to love God -- is like a fact-based marriage where each person has to be "right" about everything. It's devoid of hope on those days when you don't agree. And spirituality like a marriage only works when the prime directive of love overrides who is right or wrong.

« Last Edit: September 18, 2012, 05:47:49 PM by Jetavan »

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If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.

Frank Schaeffer isn't a theologian. He writes what he feels. But I guess he is on something. We cannot know God with our brains*, we can only experience the mystery.

*That's Orthodox doctrine, as opposed to Western scholasticism.

I am convinced that no one in this forum has the right to condemn a communing member of the Orthodox Church, calling him apostate or whatever. If there is any issue, then it is up to his priest and bishop.

I could treat you to some dispassionate rage from some holy elders at any time. Come on, the man is angry. So what? So are many of the monks etc.

They would no doubt be angry, as we should be, at someone who refers to the Scriptures as Bronze-Age myths written by homophobic misogynists and to the rejection of the teachings of the Church as an exercise in apophatic theology, or to calling God "if there is one" a "he, she, or it".

Sorry, I am not buying the comparison between Schaeffer and the holy elders, brother.

God surely is beyond male, female or neuter, because those are created by God. Christ is male according to his human nature, not according to his divinity.

Yes, that is a part of basic Orthodox theology, it is also part of our practice to refer to God (who is Spirit) as Scripture and the Fathers do: with male pronouns. Not because He is male but because this is the most appropriate form of reference.

If anyone wondered if Frank had finally gone off the deep end, this article should put any doubts to rest. He calls his article, "God is such a waste of time - Not to mention hell and the Burning US embassies" and he means it.

Wow, what an article! It seems like Schaeffer is going to spend his whole life spewing rage at whichever groups he has left while blaming his parents for this, that, and the other thing for good measure.

And at some he never belonged to in the first place, e.g. Catholicism. (At least, so I've heard from other Catholics. I never thoroughly investigated the matter myself.)

Yes, that is a part of basic Orthodox theology, it is also part of our practice to refer to God (who is Spirit) as Scripture and the Fathers do: with male pronouns. Not because He is male but because this is the most appropriate form of reference.

It is just that "o theos" (God) is gramatically male in Greek. To pnevma (the Spirit) is neuter in Greek and used by the Fathers that way.

But the Fathers, such as St. Dionysios Areopagita and St. Gregory of Nyssa, clearly point out that this language does not mean God is truly male, they even point out that no language is appropriate at all to refer to God.

Yes, that is a part of basic Orthodox theology, it is also part of our practice to refer to God (who is Spirit) as Scripture and the Fathers do: with male pronouns. Not because He is male but because this is the most appropriate form of reference.

It is just that "o theos" (God) is gramatically male in Greek. To pnevma (the Spirit) is neuter in Greek and used by the Fathers that way.

But the Fathers, such as St. Dionysios Areopagita and St. Gregory of Nyssa, clearly point out that this language does not mean God is truly male, they even point out that no language is appropriate at all to refer to God.

I agree with your post and don't see how it contradicts mine.

How are we in disagreement then?

Would it be just as Orthodox in Greek or English to say the "Our Parent" or the "Our Mother" as it is to say the "Our Father"?

When Schaeffer says "he, she, it" and questions whether God even exists he is deliberately undermining the traditional Christian terminology of the Fathers.

Yes, that is a part of basic Orthodox theology, it is also part of our practice to refer to God (who is Spirit) as Scripture and the Fathers do: with male pronouns. Not because He is male but because this is the most appropriate form of reference.

It is just that "o theos" (God) is gramatically male in Greek. To pnevma (the Spirit) is neuter in Greek and used by the Fathers that way.

But the Fathers, such as St. Dionysios Areopagita and St. Gregory of Nyssa, clearly point out that this language does not mean God is truly male, they even point out that no language is appropriate at all to refer to God.

I agree with your post and don't see how it contradicts mine.

How are we in disagreement then?

Would it be just as Orthodox in Greek or English to say the "Our Parent" or the "Our Mother" as it is to say the "Our Father"?

When Schaeffer says "he, she, it" and questions whether God even exists he is deliberately undermining the traditional Christian terminology of the Fathers.

Not necessarily. I think it's his more recent politics (just a tame, safe form of liberalism, after all) that make those that formerly admired his conversion to orthodoxy, read him know with the hermeneutics of suspicion. It's funny to watch.

Yes, that is a part of basic Orthodox theology, it is also part of our practice to refer to God (who is Spirit) as Scripture and the Fathers do: with male pronouns. Not because He is male but because this is the most appropriate form of reference.

It is just that "o theos" (God) is gramatically male in Greek. To pnevma (the Spirit) is neuter in Greek and used by the Fathers that way.

But the Fathers, such as St. Dionysios Areopagita and St. Gregory of Nyssa, clearly point out that this language does not mean God is truly male, they even point out that no language is appropriate at all to refer to God.

I agree with your post and don't see how it contradicts mine.

How are we in disagreement then?

Would it be just as Orthodox in Greek or English to say the "Our Parent" or the "Our Mother" as it is to say the "Our Father"?

When Schaeffer says "he, she, it" and questions whether God even exists he is deliberately undermining the traditional Christian terminology of the Fathers.

Not necessarily. I think it's his more recent politics (just a tame, safe form of liberalism, after all) that make those that formerly admired his conversion to orthodoxy, read him know with the hermeneutics of suspicion. It's funny to watch.

That is funny.

I was just thinking the opposite: that those who now admire his conversion to the political Left will go through any mental contortion to justify whatever he says because they like to see those they consider religious fundamentalists or the political right get bashed by him.

If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.

To be fair to Schaeffer, after rereading the article, which is indeed full of his unique apoplectic theology on most of his other points, it seems that he is a Universalist and subscribes to the apokatastasis:

QUOTE: "Completely untrue. When the Universalists talk about the afterlife, they all say there's plenty of room for post-mortem punishment! It's not all daffodils and bunny rabbits and rainbows. It's a hard justice where EVERYONE has to come to terms with the life they've lived -- and make appropriate reparations. If I were Penn and Teller I would stop the review here and say, "BS!"

While Origen's version of this teaching has been condemned (at least the idea of the pre-existence of the soul and the inevitability of universal salvation as dogma) it has remained the view of some Fathers and important teachers of the Church with no ill affect to their standing: St. Isaac, St. Gregory the Theologian, the early Blessed Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, etc. Nowadays we also have Metropolitans Kallistos and Alfeyev for example.

While I believe Schaeffer is free to accept this minority opinion as a theologoumenon, I don't understand how he can be so unhinged at the seeming near universal view of the Church and the Fathers that there is a hell to which many will go eternally.

Quoted profanity replaced with something more acceptable for the Public Forum -PtA

If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.

And yet, here I am telling my four-year-old granddaughter Lucy that God made the rock she just asked about. ....I say “and yet” because there’s this internal conversation. “You don’t know anything,” I say to myself, “why lie to her?” The other me answers, “But why pass on your doubts? She deserves a chance at certainty no matter how fleeting, and anyway you still beg God for help even on days when you don’t believe. For instance you’re on your face often enough praying for protection for Lucy.”

And that begging, called prayer, keeps beckoning me back. Old habits die hard. Nothing kills faith faster than being or having been a so-called Christian leader. Mix in the bitter politics of the religious right, let a few years pass, change careers and get out of the God business, and pretty soon you ask – rather I asked myself – who needs this God nonsense?

It turns out that I do.....Is there a God? If there is does he hate you? Did Jesus “die for our sins”? What sort of a “god” would continue the terrible cycle of sin, retribution and sacrifice up to such a crazy point as the murder of his own child to satisfy some sort of blood lust masquerading as justice?....Maybe his death wasn’t about satisfying an angry God but about breaking the cycle of revenge forever and answering the murder of innocence and an innocent victim with forgiveness for all. If that Jesus, that God, is the creator then he’s worth telling Lucy about — even on days I don’t believe, which on many days I don’t.

« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 03:07:56 PM by Jetavan »

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If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.

Who needs this God business?Maybe his death wasn’t about satisfying an angry God but about breaking the cycle of revenge forever and answering the murder of innocence and an innocent victim with forgiveness for all. If that Jesus, that God, is the creator then he’s worth telling Lucy about — even on days I don’t believe, which on many days I don’t.

Using all of the internet resources available to you why are you calling Frank Schaeffer, Frankie? This term for some reason has a negative connotation from what I can see and I would like to see of full explanation as to why you and others use this designation.

Using all of the internet resources available to you why are you calling Frank Schaeffer, Frankie? This term for some reason has a negative connotation from what I can see and I would like to see of full explanation as to why you and others use this designation.

IIRC, it's to distinguish the younger Francis Schaeffer from the elder Francis Shaeffer.

Using all of the internet resources available to you why are you calling Frank Schaeffer, Frankie? This term for some reason has a negative connotation from what I can see and I would like to see of full explanation as to why you and others use this designation.

Schaeffer made an audiocassette entitled The Abortion Holocaust and How to Stop It, using the name "Frankie Schaeffer," so the name is fair game. Besides, I'm a fan of Frankie.

« Last Edit: October 04, 2012, 09:14:26 PM by Jetavan »

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If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.

Using all of the internet resources available to you why are you calling Frank Schaeffer, Frankie? This term for some reason has a negative connotation from what I can see and I would like to see of full explanation as to why you and others use this designation.

Schaeffer made an audiocassette entitled The Abortion Holocaust and How to Stop It, using the name "Frankie Schaeffer," so the name is fair game. Besides, I'm a fan of Frankie.

Not a satisfying answer Jetavan. LBK may be right that it was originally used to distinguish Francis from Frank, but that seem irrelevant at this point. You may like Frankie, but I hate the ie after my name so I am somewhat oversensitive on this matter.

I would say that every post besides your unique use of the term Frankie for Frank Schaeffer is meant to be a pejorative label. One need only type Frankie in the search engine of this forum to see that.

"At the creation of the world, God gave mankind the responsibility to exercise dominion over the earth. Man was to use the earth and its abundance of resources to satisfy his physical needs, but he was also to care for the earth and its creatures as a wise and godly steward. Reading about endangered species or another oil spill will make it abundantly clear that the human race has failed miserably in its God-given mandate. How did we get to this point? Where should we go from here?

This classic by Francis Schaeffer, now repackaged, looks at contemporary ecological crises through the lens of theology and Scripture."

« Last Edit: October 31, 2012, 10:05:19 PM by Jetavan »

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If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.